SEA97LA124 · Cessna 150H
Cessna 150H · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Madras Municipal Airport (S33) to Roberts Field (RDM)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA97LA124
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 150H
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N50348
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Madras Municipal Airport (S33), Madras, ORTo Roberts Field (RDM)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of engine power
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel exhaustion
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to departing on a flight that the pilot estimated would take 18 to 20 minutes, he measured his fuel remaining by use of a dipstick. Based upon that measurement, he estimated that he had eight gallons of fuel remaining. While on a 45-degree entry to downwind at the destination airport, the aircraft's engine experienced a total loss of power. Although he was not able to make it to a runway, the pilot landed on a level area within the boundary of the airport. His touchdown was successful, but during the landing roll, the aircraft collided with rocks and high vegetation. After the accident, a total of 2.3 gallons of fuel was found in the wing tanks of the aircraft. According to the Owners Manual, 3.3 gallons of the total fuel load is unusable.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper decision to depart on a flight without first ensuring the aircraft held sufficient fuel to reach his destination, which resulted in fuel exhaustion. Factors were the high vegetation and rocks at the location of the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA97LA124
- Event ID
- 20001208X08036
- Case number
- SEA97LA124
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1997-06-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9a2dde70dbf91ab57302b77583fe50ffc377d73348a84f3df7d4849fddd2524c; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:31:42.387Z.